


Liar

by hufflepuff_hipster



Category: RandL - Fandom, Rhett and Link, rhink - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Death, Domestic Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Issues, Family Secrets, Friends to Lovers, Life Partners, M/M, Mutual Pining, Repressed Memories, Teen Angst, Teen Romance, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Verbal Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-11-02 03:42:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10936278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hufflepuff_hipster/pseuds/hufflepuff_hipster
Summary: At a funeral for someone who was once close to Link, Rhett divulges a secret he's been keeping for years. In the process, they come to terms with past grievances, as well as some things they never talked about with each other. Flashback to teen Rhink included, and the whole thing is mostly from Rhett's POV.(I used a Fic Prompt Generator where my prompts were: Cemetery, Angst, Friends to Lovers, and Matchmaking Child of One Character.) Trigger Warning: this fic contains a depiction of child abuse. Not super graphic, but I felt the need to warn people.





	Liar

It was an overcast chilly day in Rhett and Link’s small hometown in North Carolina. Normally when the two flew there from California to visit family, it was during the summer when everyone took vacation time from work and they all did fun things like camping, fishing, and swimming in the Cape Fear River. Unfortunately, this was not one of those happy occasions. 

Rhett couldn’t help but shiver as everyone was blasted by the bracing autumn wind. Around him in the church parking lot stood a number of people he knew, although it was mostly Link’s extended family, many of whom he could not recall the names of but knew had seen before at some point in his lifelong friendship with Link.

The giant turned around just as Lily walked over to him, dressed all in black. She stood next to Rhett and neither of them said a word. Instead, they simply looked up towards the hill from which everyone in their party had descended only moments ago. As they looked on, one figure still remained visible at the gravesite; the slim outline of a man dressed in a fitted black suit, silhouetted against the swirling grey sky. His head was hung downwards toward the tombstone, dark hair fluttering in the breeze.

Rhett furrowed his brow and sighed. He knew Link was taking the passing of his step-dad really hard, but for what reason, he did not understand. As far as Rhett knew, the two had experienced a rocky father-son relationship when Link was growing up, and there were definitely times when Rhett was sure Link had flat-out hated the man. 

“Hey Rhett?” 

Rhett looked down at Link’s daughter Lily, who looked back at him solemnly. Even though she was only fourteen, Rhett was struck by how grown up she looked in that moment.

“Mm?”

Lily bit her lip and looked back towards her father on the hill. “You should go talk to him.” 

The tall man immediately felt his palms start to sweat. Talk to Link? About this? He wouldn’t even know what to say, and he was always bad at dealing with emotional people. “Oh, I don’t know Lily. I think your daddy wants to be alone right now.”

“But aren’t you his best friend?” Lily looked back up at Rhett with big sad eyes, which Rhett immediately recognized as looking exactly like Link’s. Those sparkling blue eyes would always be his weakness, and he felt a pang of guilt as he looked into them now. She was right. 

“Well of course I’m his best friend,” said Rhett, “but…”

“But what?” asked Lily. 

Rhett looked up towards the man on the hill. He had never had a heart-to-heart with one of Link’s kids before, and it felt like a barrier was being crossed. Lily was so young, but also so mature for her age. 

“I don’t even know what I would say…” Rhett trailed off. He cleared his throat. 

To Rhett’s surprise, Lily laughed. “That’s ridiculous. You guys talk all the time. In fact, the only thing you do is talk for a living.”

Rhett chuckled through his nose. “That’s true. I guess I could at least go say a few words to him.” As he turned to leave, he patted Lily on the shoulder. “You know, you’re really mature for your age. Your dad is lucky to have you to looking after him.”

Lily grinned. “I know.” 

Rhett began ascending the hill.

 

~FLASHBACK~

 

“Slow down, Link! Wait for me!” Rhett peddled as fast as he could on his bike, but somehow Link was still way ahead of him on the freshly paved asphalt road. The smell of new tarmac baking in the sun filled his nose as he panted for air. 

As he rounded the familiar street that Link’s house was on, he let his bike spill into the yard as he sprinted to catch up with his best friend. 

“You finally showed up!” Link teased with a huge smile on his face. 

Rhett bent over to rest his hands on his knees. “Why’d you wanna get here so fast?” 

Link rested a hand on his taller friend’s shoulder. “Sorry man. I just couldn’t wait to get home and show you…” he gestured over to the beat up sedan parked in the driveway, “…this!”

Rhett straightened up, confused. “Your step dad’s car?”

“Yes, it’s my step dad’s car. But!” Link ran over to the car and slid across the hood to the driver’s side, then opened the door. “I get to drive it.” He shot Rhett some finger-guns.  
Rhett’s eyes went wide. This was a huge deal. They were both only fifteen, but in North Carolina you could get your learner’s permit at that age and begin practicing with adult permission.

“Are you serious?!” Rhett now realized why Link had been rushing to get home. 

“Yeah buddy!” Link almost shouted, practically jumping up and down.

“Wait, and your step dad is cool with it?” 

Link sunk down into the ratty leather seat of the old sedan and gripped the steering wheel. “Oh yeah, he’s cool with it,” he said casually. 

Rhett didn’t hesitate any further, and immediately leapt into the passenger’s seat. After some arguing about what song should play through the car speakers during this auspicious occasion, they finally settled on a rock song they both liked and proceeded to blast it loudly with all the windows rolled down. 

Link pulled out of the driveway and onto the road cautiously at first, but then gained confidence as time went on. Soon the two were hauling ass down dirt roads, whooping and hollering like this was the most exciting moment of their entire lives, which to be honest, it kind of was. Being able to drive meant they could get jobs. And getting jobs meant money. And money meant gas and road trips and girls and tomfoolery and freedom. This was the beginning of something big.

Link had just pulled over into a vacant lot on the side of the road when he turned to Rhett. His dark hair was strewn across his sweaty face and his eyes sparkled brighter than anything Rhett had seen before. 

“So what do we do now?” Link prompted. 

Rhett bit his lip. He looked around the vacant dirt lot and a wicked smile started to form across his lips. 

“Donuts,” he said. 

Without saying anything, the same wicked smile spread on Link’s face as he put the car into gear and immediately they started whipping around in circles in the small lot. This particular lot had just the right amount of loose dirt and gravel so that Link could get a better and better drift each time they spun around. 

As time went on, in order to keep the adrenaline flowing, Link began attempting tighter and tighter maneuvers, sometimes even bringing two wheels off the ground. Each time this happened, the two of them yelped in delight. It was like riding the best roller coaster they had ever experienced, only better because it was only them and they got to control it.

That was, until Link took it too far.

On one particularly sharp turn, the left side of the car came up so high that they were both certain that the car was about to flip over. Excitement turned into sheer panic as the moment hung in the air before finally, the other side of the car came back down with BANG. Red dust flew up around the vehicle, and everything was still.

Rhett’s heart was beating a million miles an hour. His whole life had just flashed before his eyes, he was sure of it. He felt a hand on his lap and looked down to see Link, who had basically fallen out of his seat and landed in his lap during the weightlessness of being suspended in air.

Link slowly raised his head up and looked around. His hair was all over the place and had flecks of red dirt all over it.

“Whoa,” Link breathed out. 

He turned his head sharply and brushed his nose against Rhett’s by accident. They both froze, eyes wide, staring at each other while their hearts hammered like crazy and their breathing stopped.

Before Rhett knew what was happening, Link’s eyes fluttered shut and he felt his soft lips just barely brush against his own. Not thinking about it, Rhett felt himself give in, lost in the adrenaline rush and whatever it was he was feeling in that moment. Excitement? Fear? Lust? Panic? As Link’s lips pressed fully against his, Rhett let out a small groan. For a split second, Rhett pressed back in return, but then jerked his head back. This was weird. What the heck was going on?

Rhett hurriedly pressed himself back against the door on his side, trying to extricate himself from underneath Link’s taut body lying on top of him. In his scrambling, the door somehow flew open and Rhett fell backwards into the dirt. 

“Are you okay?!” Link poked his head out the door.

“Yeah, I’m fine!” Rhett said angrily. In a flurry of long limbs and awkward motions, he got to his feet and brushed himself off.

Panicking, Link quickly scrambled back into the driver’s seat of the car where he gripped the steering wheel again. His back was stiff as a board and his knuckles were white as Rhett reluctantly slid his long body back into the passenger’s seat. There was an awkward silence.

Eventually, Link cleared his throat and made some kind of joke about how they were lucky they made it out of that one alive. Eager to relieve the tension, Rhett had laughed along with him, and they drove back to Link’s house in a relatively comfortable silence, each of them independently thinking, “Let’s just pretend that never happened and never speak of this ever again.”

It was twilight as the two boys pulled into the driveway of Link’s home, and Rhett heard Link unmistakably mutter under his breath, “Shit, he’s home already.”

Rhett stared at his best friend as the engine cut off. “Link…”

“Yeah?” 

“I thought you said your step dad was fine with you driving the car.”

“Pfft,” Link guffawed. “Yeah, of course he is.” 

Rhett continued to stare, feeling unsure. Link was a terrible liar. 

“Alright, alright,” said Rhett as they both exited the car. He turned to say goodbye to Link, but Link was already at the front door waving to him. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow!” the brunet shouted.

Rhett picked his bike up off the grass where he had left it. “Okay, see you tomorrow!” 

Rhett watched over his shoulder as his friend stepped inside of his house and shut the door behind him. Something about the look on his face earlier, and something about the way Link’s hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly made Rhett feel like there was something Link was definitely not telling him. Against his better judgment, Rhett propped his bike up behind a nearby bush and very quietly tip toed his way around to the back to the Neal home. 

Rhett knew Link’s house as well as his own, and decided he would have the best viewpoint if he peered through the back kitchen window. It was small, right above the sink, and had lots of clutter around it, so it was likely that no one would notice him peering in. Plus, he would also have a good view of the entire kitchen. 

From where Rhett was situated, he saw Link stroll casually into the warmly lit kitchen. He had to smile at the way Link was so obviously trying to act like nothing was amiss – the dork was so bad at lying. 

Seeing Link through a window like this with no idea that he was being watched made Rhett feel exhilarated all over again. Wait, what was wrong with him? Should he get this excited over just watching his best friend? On second thought, he was a creep. This was weird, and he should just turn around and go home. 

Just as he was about to leave, Link’s mom stormed into the kitchen.

“Hey mom,” Link said with his flashiest of smiles.

“Don’t you ‘hey mom’ me!” She said.

Then Link’s step dad Jim stormed in next.

“Just what the hell do you think you’re doin?!” he yelled. In one fluid motion, he crossed the kitchen and smacked Link upside the head with the palm of his hand, sending the boy flying across the room and into the countertop with a loud “oof!”

Rhett felt his whole body stiffen. What the heck?! His face remained glued to the scene playing out before his very eyes.

“I’m sorry!” Link said immediately, throwing his hands up over his head to protect himself. 

“You’re sorry?!” The older man roared. “You’re SORRY?! Oh, I’ll give ya somethin to be sorry about!” He moved towards Link and yanked him up off the ground by the shirt collar, then threw him to the side so that he crumpled onto the ground in a heap.

“Hey, cut it out!” Link piped, but his voice was shaking. WHAM. Another blow to the head knocked him back down to the floor.

“Jim! That’s enough Jim!” Link’s mom shouted. She grabbed the man’s arm to pull him back from her son, but he easily shook her off. 

Rhett could not believe what he was witnessing. Every fiber of his being told him to run into the house and break up the fight, to defend Link and say it was entirely fault, that he should be hitting Rhett instead. However, he had also never seen anything like this before. It was scary and he wasn’t sure what he would even do once he got inside the house. Jim was bigger than Rhett and Link combined and would surely just beat the crap out of them both? Was he a coward if he just stayed there and watched? Thoughts screamed through his mind and his legs felt frozen in place, unable to move. He hated himself. Why didn’t he just do something?! Anything!

“You thought you could just take something that wasn’t yours?!” Jim’s voice boomed again. “Thought you and that weirdo friend of yours could just go off on a little joyride?! Probably off screwin somewhere in the woods!”

“What?” Link was back up on his feet again, but his cheek was already bruised and his lip was bloody. “No!”

Jim rushed forward and grabbed Link’s throat, choking him just enough to put fear in his eyes. Link’s mom was beside herself, trying with all her strength to pull Jim off of her son, but to no avail. 

“If I ever catch you even so much as looking at that car again, or hangin out with your homo friend, I swear to god I will give you somethin else to be sorry about.” The man shoved Link backwards into the cabinets, then turned and stomped out of the room. 

Rhett ducked from the window and sank down to the ground, his back against the side of the house. He wrapped his long arms around his knees, trying to calm himself down after what he had just seen and heard. His mind raced back to all of the times Link had come to school with bruises or scrapes. He had always played it off by saying he was clumsy, that he had fallen down, or that he had gotten hurt during soccer practice. His body was shaking, and he realized just then that he was crying. Oh Link…

Rhett was now certain of two things: 1) Jim was the worst human being to ever live and he hated his guts, and 2) Link was actually a much better liar than Rhett thought he was.

 

~ END FLASHBACK ~ 

 

Rhett stopped a few feet away from Link on the hilltop, but the brunet sensed his presence and briefly turned to face the taller man.

“Hey,” Link said quietly. 

Rhett took that as permission to come closer, so he stood next to his friend and stared down at the gravestone with him, reading in his head: ‘Here lies James “Jim” Buford Brown – May he rest in peace.’ He rested a hand on his friend’s shoulder and rubbed the fabric of the black suit with his thumb.

“Came to say a few words?” Link asked.

Rhett sighed and removed his hand from his friend’s shoulder, sticking it gruffly into his suit pocket. “No, not really. I didn’t actually like the guy that much, if I’m honest.”

Link looked at Rhett incredulously. “What kind of a thing is that to say?”

Rhett stared hard at the grey tombstone and the fresh soil settled against the bottom edge of it. 

“Do you remember that day we drove his car around some country roads, and then we mysteriously never got to drive it ever again?” Rhett poised. 

“Yeah, I remember that,” Link smiled a little. “Good times.”

Rhett now stared at his best friend, brows furrowed. “How can you even say that?!”

Link’s smile disappeared. “What?” 

“Well when we got back to your house that night, I didn’t go home, Link,” said Rhett, now with a gentler voice, remembering the pain from that night. “I stayed behind to see what was going on with you and your step dad and I saw everything that happened.” 

Link stared into Rhett’s grey-green eyes with his deep blue ones. As understanding sunk into his mind, he dropped his head to stare back at the ground, ashamed. 

“Oh,” he squeaked. 

“I never brought it up because…” Rhett trailed off, unsure. He felt that he owed his friend an explanation for why he had never tried to confront him about the abuse that was going on. “Well, Jim had been kind of in and out of your house over the next few years, so I didn’t think that it was still going on. I mean, you stopped coming to school with bruises for a while, so I thought maybe things were okay again.”

“Yeah,” Link continued to stare at the ground, toeing the grass with his shiny black shoe.

Rhett couldn’t stop himself from rambling on. The guilt that he had suppressed over the years for never being there for Link through that difficult time was eating him up and he had to get it out in the open once and for all. 

“And all the horrible stuff he said to you…I was only fifteen, I didn’t know how to talk about that with you, you know?”

“Rhett,” Link looked up at him again, “it’s okay. You don’t have to defend yourself.”

“I do though!” Rhett almost shouted. “I felt so guilty that night for not stepping in when he was hurting you. He was an awful, disgusting man, Link. I watched him beat you up! And your mom was crying, and he was horrible, and you were on the floor bleeding, and I just stood there like an idiot…!” he trailed off, his words becoming strangled through tears that seemed to come from nowhere all of a sudden, springing back up from the suppressed memory of that night.

Link stepped closer to Rhett, surprised at this sudden emotional outburst. He grabbed him by the shoulders, forcing the taller man to look into his eyes.

“Hey man, listen to me,” said Link. “I know. I know he was a horrible person sometimes. But you’re right, after that episode he hardly ever touched me again. Why do you think I was always hanging out at your house in high school, huh?” 

Rhett smiled a little through his tears. “Oh, is that why? You were just using me as an escape?” 

“I mean mostly, yeah.” Link smiled and rubbed Rhett’s shoulders in his hands. “So just…don’t get so worked up about it, alright? I was fine.”

Rhett sniffed and looked at the ground, feeling his tears subsiding. “Okay, well…good.” 

Rhett lifted his head back up and they stared at each other for a moment, Link’s hands still resting on the taller man’s shoulders. 

“You gotta admit, that was a pretty fun day though,” said Link with a smile. “Before all the bad stuff.”

Rhett swallowed, his mind instantly going to the moment in the car years ago when they had timidly kissed. With how close Link was standing to him now as he thought about this, his palms started sweating. Did Link even remember that, or think about it is often as he did?

“Yeah,” Rhett said nervously, “before we almost died.” 

“Oh I don’t know,” Link said, still smiling. He removed his hands from Rhett, but continued to look into his eyes. “That was kind of my favorite part.”

Rhett felt himself blush. He looked back down towards where all the people had been standing around by the parking lot, but almost everyone was gone by now. He could barely take this conversation anymore. Thinking about what Link was referring to made his heartbeat go crazy and now he was sure his palms were the sweatiest they had ever been. He and Link worked together on a daily basis and had always been present in each other’s lives, but they had never once spoken about that day. Now all the feelings came rushing back in.

Rhett hadn’t noticed the long pause in their conversation. He turned to face Link, who was now staring back at him with the oddest expression. 

“Are you talking about when the car almost flipped over, or…after…that?” said Rhett, barely above a whisper.

Link raised his eyebrows and shook his head as if he didn’t know how to answer that question. He took a step closer to the tall man and, as if it was nothing, peered up into Rhett’s face with the most beautifully pained expression. 

“I guess I was a real adrenaline junky back then,” he whispered.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Rhett challenged back.

“The car. My favorite part was the car.”

There was a pause. The air went still between them as they stopped breathing, eyes locked on each other.

“You always were a bad liar, Link,” Rhett breathed.

In an instant, their lips crashed together, arms wrapped around each other so tightly. So much fiery passion and force – it was everything Rhett had wanted the kiss to be all those years ago in that stolen beat up sedan on a dirt road. For a few brief seconds, they allowed their brains to check out and for their beating hearts to run away with themselves.

It was a short-lived kiss though, and they pulled apart from it quickly, praying that no one had seen them in their embrace. 

“Given…given that we’re in a cemetery, this doesn’t seem very appropriate,” Link stammered. “We should…we should go. I have to go.” He turned to leave, but Rhett grabbed his sleeve and pulled him back.

“Well then maybe we should get out of here and go for a drive,” he said, a twinkle in his green-grey eyes. “Like old times.”

A smile slowly spread across Link’s face. “That sounds...good.”


End file.
